Halloween seemed like as good a time as any to trot out another great riff on our classic sugar cookie recipe. Before you get started though, there are a few secrets we think you should know. First, for super clean edges, pop the cookies in the refrigerator or freezer until they're completely firm. This means the butter will take longer to melt and in turn, helps the cookie keep its crisp edge. Now, you can also go off recipe a bit. Ours calls for a whole egg (which helps keep the cookies tender) but you could use 1 egg yolk in its place or omit the egg altogether. Both of these options will make for sharper shapes.

Think you’ll never win at weeknight meals? Think again. This plan requires a little sacrifice—two hours on a weekend—but the payoff is huge: a mix-and-match stash of building blocks to create easier, faster dinners all week long.

This adorable dessert offers all the flavors and aroma of a warm apple pie, pre-portioned into single-serve treats. Each apple is filled with homemade pie filling and topped with a swirl of pecan-oat crumble. The combination is so good it will have you licking the spoon. Though other varieties of crisp apples work in a pinch, we prefer Honeycrisp because they hold their shape when baked. As far as the crust goes, we love a traditional lattice, but feel free to get creative with all sorts of designs. We recommend serving the whole thing a la mode.

Slow cookers are a great way to get dinner on the table with minimal fuss and mess. We’re especially fond of using them for super tender meat preparations: pork shoulder, chicken thighs, and beef brisket do especially well when cooked low, slow, and undisturbed.

But have you ever tried baking in your slow cooker? We came up with six delicious ways to work the sweet side of your machine. Sure, you could make similar versions in the oven, but the slow cooker provides a slow even heat that, for some cakes, is far superior than the traditional oven treatment. Our Slow Cooker Cheesecake, for example, sets up to a delectable custardy texture, no water batch required. And we suggest scooping the Chocolate Pudding Cake straight from slow cooker to dessert dish. Ice Cream required.

There are a couple of key things to keep in mind when you’re assembling these magic cakes. A few of them require a homemade rack that prevents the cake vessel from sitting directly on the bottom of the insert. Rather than have you special order a very special-sized rack, we coiled up some foil and used that to give the cake pans some breathing room. (This handy trick works if you need to make a homemade steamer basket as well).

These cakes all get baked with a towel pulled taught underneath the lid. The cakes will naturally create steam while they bake and the towel absorbs the droplets of condensation so they don’t drip back on to the cake and blemish the top. However, in the event that you happen to use an industrial-strength detergent, you may want to use something milder. We tried one cheesecake that tasted an awful lot like Mountain Fresh Breeze.

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